If you have been a church attender during the past few years, or listened to Christian radio, then you are probably familiar with the song Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) by Hillsong United. It has been a rather popular song in the Christian circles that I am a part of. And it is a good song, a really good song, actually. I really enjoy the music and the lyrics. But it is also what I would call an “aspirational” worship song. (There are many of these.) I say this because it is a song all about welcoming uncertainty and finding rest in God even when the chaos of our world feels like it’s going to overtake us. In fact, the song centers around a refrain that invites God to take us deeper into the ocean to the point where our feet are no longer on solid ground, so that our “faith may be made stronger” as we learn to rely solely on Him.

I will understand if you feel some dissonance between such lyrics and the actual actions of many Christians as of late. I will forgive you if your first thought was “Hypocrites!” As I said, it is an aspirational song.

The last few months have been marked by uncertainty. The COVID-19 virus has defied our efforts to understand it, and public officials have yet to find the right balance between the competing concerns of parents, kids, the elderly, big businesses, small businesses, health care workers, the economy, etc. That we live in uncertain times has become a cliché.

Then there was last week’s election which was preceded by weeks of uncertainty around whether voting could happen safely and securely, and followed by days of uncertainty around the results. Saturday morning Joe Biden was announced as the winner, but there will likely be days and weeks of further uncertainty as President Trump challenges the results.

What if all this uncertainty and discomfort and chaos is really just God responding to the aspirational songs we sing? What if 2020 is really just God answering our prayers? What if these last few months have simply been God giving us what we asked for?

We have invited God’s Spirit to take us deeper into the unknown and deeper into uncertainty. And here we are, out of our depth, unmoored from the solid ground that used to give us comfort and security. Here we are, invited to trust in God in new and deeper ways.

So what do we do?

In these uncertain times allow me commend to you the search for wisdom, rather than the fight to be right. It is hard to dig in our heels when our feet are helping us tread water. To dig in is to drown. Instead, let us leave behind the us-verses-them attitudes. Let us refuse to see the world in terms of black and white. And let us remember the biblical call to wisdom. Spend some time contemplating Job 28. Consider the process of discernment Paul encourages in Romans 12:1-2. Read one of the Gospels and consider Jesus’ priorities and his engagement with the concerns and politics of his day.

If we can emerge from this chaotic year less reactive and more thoughtful, less rooted in the pursuits of this world and better grounded in the Story of God, less concerned with our own agendas and more attuned to the needs of this world, then I will say that the growing pains were well worth it. God has answered our prayers. Now how will we respond?